For years, almost anyone who has researched lawyers online has most certainly included Google in their process. With the rise of chatGPT and other large language models, is Google’s dominant market share at risk? To find out what consumers are doing in 2025, we ran another study that involved over 1,000 participants. While we know from our previous research that most consumers use multiple sources in their research process, we wanted to find out which ones specifically are most used. Below are the results of this question (which was one of multiple questions we asked).
We asked consumers to identify which online sources they would use in their research process, if they needed to hire a lawyer for a very important legal issue. The chart below shows the results:
Google Usage in 2025
While the perception that many people have is that Google usage has dropped considerably, that’s actually far from the truth. Data shows that Google still has a gigantic market share lead, and nothing else even comes close. While the percentage of users who said they would use Google has dropped a bit (89% in October 2024), it’s still at a giant 87%.
In 2025, 87% of consumers use Google to help them find a lawyer
iLawyer Marketing Consumer Study July 2025
The claims that AI engines are “Google killers” are not based on reality. While Google’s market share may slowly decrease over time, Google isn’t going anywhere and they are adapting by incorporating AI directly into Google search, with AIO (AI Overviews) and with AI Mode.
Google has many AI products, including Gemini, one of the top LLMs, and Google is investing heavily into it to make sure they don’t fall behind in the LLM race.
ChatGPT: How many people are using chatGPT to help them find attorneys in 2025?
It’s no surprise that usage of chatGPT continues to grow. In fact, since we first asked this question in May of 2023, the number of people who indicated that they would use chatGPT to find a lawyer has more than tripled – going from 9% in 2023 to 28% in 2025. However, this doesn’t mean that users of chatGPT would not be using Google! In fact, data shows the opposite is true. One of our most interesting findings in this study was this: Of those participants who said they would use chatGPT, over 94% said they would also use Google search! So the use of both chatGPT and Google is highly correlated.
94% of chatGPT users also use Google to conduct their research on which attorney to hire
iLawyer Marketing Consumer Study July 2025
Many consumers don’t completely yet trust the answers that AI engines provide them. This is in part to the hallucinations that we sometimes see from LLMs. What we have found from consumers that use chatGPT for help in making important life decisions (like hiring an attorney, or medical advice) is that they will do additional research using Google, to help them validate what they were told by chatGPT (or other LLMs).
When diving deeper with some of the study participants, we asked the following question: “If an Answer Engine (chatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, etc.) recommended a law firm, would you trust that recommendation?” Understandably, we got a variety of answers. Here are some sample responses, from 10 different study participants:
- “I think it would be a good start to narrow down possible law firms, especially if I were unfamiliar with lawyers that handle my specific case.”
- “I would believe it more if the law firm was well known but I wouldn’t blindly trust the recommendation past that.”
- “I would look into the ones that it recommended, but I would not blindly trust it.”
- “It would be 50/50 I would take their recommendation. But you don’t know if you don’t check.”
- “I would research the suggested firm.”
- “I would be very concerned that the recommendation was actually a paid promotion, and *not* directly a response to the particular needs of my case”.
- “I probably would, but not as much as traditional search engines like Google/Yelp. I would exercise more caution and verify the recommendation independently. Also, as someone who uses AI a lot, there is the potential for hallucinations.”
- “I might think about the recommendation, but I wouldn’t rely on it completely without checking things out myself.”
- “Yes but I would do additional research to confirm.”
- “I’d be hesitant to trust a law firm recommendation solely from an answer engine like chatGPT or Perplexity. I’d want to verify the recommendation through other sources, such as reviews or personal referrals, to ensure the law firm is reputable and a good fit for my specific needs.”
What was clear to us is that most people would do additional research before contacting a lawyer, when an Answer Engine recommended an attorney or law firm.
Do People Trust Answer Engines More than Google?
Not yet, no. We asked participants the following question: “What would you trust more to help you find a lawyer, an Answer Engine (chatGPT, Perplexity, etc.) or a Search Engine (Google, Bing, etc.)?” Nearly 45% of participants said they trust a Search Engine more than an Answer Engine, while just 25% said they had more trust in chatGPT, Perplexity, or other Answer Engines. Nearly 30% of people wouldn’t trust one more than the other.
At least for now, Search Engines are almost 2x as likely to be trusted by consumers than Answer Engines.
What “Other” Answer Engines Do Consumers Use to Research Attorneys?
No other LLM comes close to chatGPT:
- Gemini: 12.2%
- Perplexity: 6.1%
- Claude: 4.7%
- Grok: 4.6%
When it comes to Answer Engines, chatGPT has a dominant position in terms of usage. Keep in mind that Google’s Gemini is what powers AIO (A.I. Overviews on Google Search) and Google’s AI Mode, so that is very important when it comes to visibility for law firms.
Other Popular Sources for Consumer Research
If there’s one thing that we know, it’s that consumers are often using many different sources when researching which attorneys to hire. In 2025, smart marketers are considering their visibility and how their brand appears on the many different platforms.
Nearly 25% of consumers will use Facebook as part of their research process. People are looking for reviews, comments, pictures, videos, what you post about and often where you stand politically. For these reasons, Facebook is used by 1 out of every 4 people doing their research on which law firm to hire. Don’t ignore it.
Yelp
You probably hate Yelp (many law firm owners do), but consumers are still using Yelp to find reviews of your law firm. In this study, more than 24% of participants said they would use Yelp in their research process. Getting reviews is hard for any business, and Yelp sure does not make it easy (as they often filter legitimate reviews), but don’t ignore your Yelp reviews. Especially if you have a star rating of lower than 4 stars, get your rating up. I can promise you it will absolutely cost you cases if you have a rating of 3.5 stars or lower. We’ve learned this through our annual studies and from attorneys who were having difficulties converting traffic into actual cases because of bad Yelp reviews.
YouTube
Video is a very powerful way to increase trust with your potential clients. In this latest study, over 20% of consumers indicated they would use YouTube when trying to figure out which law firm to hire. It makes sense, since over 85% of consumers say that video helps them in their decision making process of which law firm to hire. If you don’t have videos (and recent ones) that do a great job of showing people that your firm would be the right choice for them, you are no doubt leaving money on the table. Making sure you have compelling video on YouTube is very important in 2025.
Important Takeaways for 2025
Law firm marketing is more challenging than ever, so it’s important to be smart about how you do your marketing. We conduct these studies every year to help law firms make smarter, data driven decisions. Here are some important takeaways from this study:
Continue to focus on Google
Usage on Google still clearly dominates over any other platform, by a very wide margin. With 87% of consumers using Google to do research, no other platform even comes close. In an ideal world, you are doing both organic SEO and paid ads on Google. Additionally, Google has an advantage over other Answer Engines with their AI answers built directly into search, so that market share will continue to climb.
Over 94% of chatGPT users also use Google search – optimize for both
Consumers don’t yet simply rely on chatGPT (or other LLMs) to make important decisions, especially one like hiring an attorney. People don’t trust Answer Engines over their own research process, so they turn to Google to do more in depth research. Ideally, your law firm is optimizing for Google and chatGPT to give you the best chance at creating awareness for your firm.
More consumers trust Search Engines more than Answer Engines
At least for now, more consumers trust Google search results more than answers from LLMs like chatGPT. For this reason, Google should still be the focus of your marketing efforts.
Use of chatGPT is growing – don’t sleep on this channel
Not surprisingly, the percentage of people that would use chatGPT to help them find the right lawyer to hire has increased to 28%. Don’t wait till it’s too late to start optimizing for chatGPT, as this number is expected to continue growing, as people start to trust LLMs more and as adoption continues to increase.
Facebook is still used by consumers – don’t ignore it
Our study found that 1 out of every 4 people will use Facebook to research a law firm. In the past this number has typically been 20-30%. Don’t ignore your FB page. At the very least, make sure your Facebook page is up to date, has good reviews, updated pictures, video and paints your law firm in a positive light. This will help you increase your chances of converting visitors into actual clients. Additionally, Facebook (when using smarter targeting methods) can be a cost efficient way to generate more leads for your firm.
Post High Quality Videos on YouTube
Creating law firm videos that make your law firm look like a smart choice for consumers is important. With 1 out of every 5 people in our study saying they would use YouTube to do research, that’s clearly enough people to where you should not ignore YouTube in 2025. Additionally, we’ve seen Google search results start to incorporate more videos for general searches for attorneys (especially on mobile). Having video can increase your chance of appearing in Google search results. Also, consider that for the more serious cases, more research will be done by the consumer. Just as there is high quality content writing and low quality content, the same holds true for video. Not all video is good. It can hurt your chances of converting prospective clients if the videos are low quality or don’t present you in the best light. When done the right way, video can be a huge advantage over your competitors. And in 2025, you need every advantage you can get over your competition.
Multi-Channel Marketing Gives you the Best Chance to Succeed in 2025
As our study shows, consumers use a wide variety of sources to do research in 2025. We know most firms don’t have an unlimited budget when it comes to marketing, so you to choose the smartest combination of marketing channels. This means a blend of organic and paid search. It means traditional search engines, social media and Answer Engines. The specifics depend on your firms needs, who you are competing with in your market and of course your marketing budget.
Questions?
If you have any questions about this study, or are interested in finding out if we can help your firm, feel free to reach out to us!